PHYS 124 - Freshman Project |
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Semester: | Spring 2016 | |
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Instructor: | Cemal Yalabik | |
Office: | Room SA-228 | Phone 1316 |
Assistant: | Mohammed Fathi Tovini |
About the course:
This course intends to impart to the student, knowledge and capabilities associated with
basic reserch methods and tools needed to carry out reasearch in Physics.
The course will involve 2 hours/week of classroom instruction in which the student
will be exposed to such subjects as literature and citation search through indices,
planning and carrying out research procedures, research ethics, use of scientific
computer tools for statistical analysis, report construction and presentation.
The course will proceed in relation with a project on a specific topic in physics or a closely related area. The course will expose students to research through projects that require no prior knowledge beyond the high school level.
Teaching goals include practicing critical thinking, analyzing cause and effect relationships, planning controlled experiments, as well as gaining familiarity with useful skills such as literature search and scientific document preparation.
Homework:
The project activity and classroom topics will generate regular assignments
aiming to provide sufficient practice of the tools thought during class.
Attendance requirement
If a student misses more than 6 hours of class, (s)he will need to compensate this
by completing assignments which will take much longer time to do, or the grade will be an F.
Grading:
The grading will be based on the progress of the student's research project,
which will be assessed regularly during the semester through the reports and
presentation material that will have to be prepared. Students will also be
graded on the presentation of their project at the end of the semester.
Homework performance and attendance will also affect the final grade.
Literature search homework | 10% | Due Wednesday, February 17 | |
Project proposal | 10% | Due Wednesday, February 24 | |
LaTex homework | 10% | Due Wednesday, March 2 | |
Project progress report | 10% | Due Wednesday, March 16 | |
Numerical modeling homework 1 | 10% | Due Wednesday, March 23 | |
Numerical modeling homework 2 | 10% | Due Wednesday, April 6 | |
Project report | 10% | Due Wednesday, April 20 | |
Project presentation material | 10% | Due Wednesday, April 27 | |
Project presentation | 20% | ||
Colloquium attendance (extra credit) | 10% | ||
Class attendance (extra credit) | 10% |
You can view your grades through the Stars system.
Course Schedule: | |||
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First meeting: Monday, Feb. 1, 10:40 - 12:30 in B-102 | |||
Lectures: | Mondays | 10:40 - 12:30 | Room B-102 |
Practice sessions: | Wednesdays | 15:40 - 17:30 | Room SA-Z02 |
Office Hours: | |||
Thursdays | 11:40 - 12:30 | Room SA-228 | |
All other times (if available - call 1316 to check) | Room SA-228 |
Week | Class discussion | Tasks/Assignments | Introduction, description of work to be carried outDiscussion of available personal and university resources Literature search | Students come with printed material related to possible topics
Selection of general area of the project Planning a project Hypothesis, analysis/experiment, evaluation | Class discussions on all of the project topics
Literature search homework due Introduction to LaTex Tutorial Files The LaTex manual | Colloquium: "Surprises in particle sedimentation" by Roberto Piazza
Project proposal due Data visualization Gnuplot information | Colloquium: "Quantum optics of spins and photons" by Mete Atature
LaTex homework due Numerical modeling | Numerical modeling examples Data analysis | Colloquium: "An adventure in psychic communication: Optical communication with invisible photons" by Suhail Zubairy Project progress report due Research ethics | Numerical modeling homework 1 due Scientific writing | Colloquium: "Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) for Fuel Cell applications" by Taner Yildirim Order of magnitude Physics | Colloquium: "Active Matter" by Giovanni Volpe
Numerical modeling homework 2 due Presentation software |
More advanced project opportunities in the department | Colloquium: "Neutrinos in Physics and Astrophysics" by Baha Balantekin Project report due Making effective oral presentations | Colloquium: "Nanotechnology at Work: From Basic Science to Spin-Off Companies" by Ekmel Ozbay
Presentation material due Improvements on presentation material Project Presentations | Project Presentations |